From the archive on Khora

Ah, my gal Khora. Following are some posts from the Ning IPS discussion of Balder's paper "Sophia Speaks":

theurj: The preposition acts like khora in that it is that withdrawn core that prepares the space-time for actual occasions and is coterminous with them, a la Whitehead. Hence I'm wondering if prepositions, while parts of language, aren't themselves something prelinguistic and which tie language back to that basic categorical embodiment via image schemata? If I'm right about prepositions being more akin to objet a than being an actualization or local manifestation of a particular paradigm, then they might be more of an meta-paradigmatic function (p. 1)

Quoting Sallis with ideas similar to mine (p.2):

"What is needed is a logic that addresses the originary openings in which things first come to show themselves, a logic of schemata, spacing, and imagining.[...] Sallis identifies several schemata (spatio-temporal determinations) such as simultaneity and spatial proximity that correspond to various logical categories. In each case the key feature is the yoking together of contradictory terms in a unity that neither destroys the terms nor cancels either of them."

"Khora hovers on the very edge of nothingness, never showing itself as itself, but only in conjunction with the presence of the elemental bodies, as a trace of 'something,' which can never itself be made present. It is thus 'something' very much like what Derrida named différance: an originary spacing and 'differencing' that presence presupposes and that, as a condition for the possibility (and paradoxically the impossibility) of presence, can never itself be present."
theurj: The preposition acts like khora, in that it is that withdrawn core that prepares the space-time for such actual occasions and is coterminous with them, a la Whitehead. I've made that connection with image schemata before. Nancy is representative of this, and as I've noted, he extends Derrida's ideas in this regard. This quote exemplifies the notion: “As Steven Connor (2008) notes, prepositions, in inhabiting a non-place or a pre-position, traffic in between the potential and the actual.” Sounds a lot like my stuff on khora. Hence I'm wondering if prepositions, while parts of language, aren't themselves something prelinguistic and which tie language back to that basic categorical embodiment via image schemata? This also ties with my recent ruminations on objet a.

I found it interesting in your last section how Serre's prepositional model might be the integrative glue for an onto-choreography. The immediately preceding paragraph lends support to that idea. I'm again reminded of Bryant's Borromean knot, which might represent the various modes and parts of speech, while the 'speechless' khora at the center is what holds them all together. And is based on the cognitive embodiment of speech that ties together your thesis itself. Perhaps for the next paper? (p. 3)